Chapter 4 - Smoke and Shrapnel
The acrid smell of sulfur and burnt magnesium filled the clinic air instantly, stinging my eyes and catching in my throat. Through the ringing in my ears, I could hear heavy combat boots splashing through puddles outside, accompanied by harsh, clipped shouts over encrypted tactical radios.
"Clear the threshold! Move in, move in!"
"They're deploying gas!" Miller coughed violently from behind the triage desk, pulling a damp cloth from his pocket and pressing it against his face. "Dr. Cole! Through the back, now! They're hitting us with CS gas!"
A thick, greyish-white plume of tear gas began billowing through the shattered front entrance, rolling across the floor like an ominous tide. Ghost sneezed sharply, his powerful nose twitching, but he stayed locked to my side, pressing his body against my leg with absolute loyalty.
"Hold on!" I grabbed the emergency go-bag and my veterinary trauma kit, slinging both over my shoulders. I reached down and grabbed the heavy steel lockbox containing the military sat-com.
We didn't have time to use the back hallway. If the QRF had surrounded the building, the rear exit—which opened into a narrow alleyway connecting to the municipal parking lot—would already be covered by a sniper or a secondary containment team. Black-ops teams didn't leave rear doors un-watched; that was basic urban combat doctrine.
"Not the back," I coughed, wiping a tear from my eye as the CS gas began to bite into my skin and mucous membranes. "They've got the alley pinned. We go through the surgical prep room, out the roof hatch, and across the commercial awnings."
Miller stared at me as if I had grown a second head. "The roof? This is a single-story brick commercial block!"
"It connects to the old wharf warehouses down by the harbor," I snapped, pulling a heavy crowbar from the maintenance closet and jamming it into the drywall access panel above the surgical sink. "Unless you want to walk out that front door and catch a round to the chest from Vance's friends, I suggest you start climbing."
With a sharp grunt, I leveraged the crowbar, popping the wooden access panel loose with a loud, echoing crack. Dust and insulation rained down into the sink.
Miller didn't argue further. He hauled himself up onto the surgical counter, grabbed the edge of the ceiling joist, and hoisted his muscular frame up into the dark crawlspace above. "Ghost! Up!" he commanded, whistling sharply.
The Malinois didn't wait for a second invitation. With an astonishing display of vertical leap and raw power, Ghost sprang from the floor, clearing the counter and disappearing into the dark ceiling space with a soft thud.
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I checked the lobby one last time through the swirling gray smoke. Vance was already back on his feet, leaning against the counter, coughing and shouting orders into his comms unit as three heavily armed contractors poured through the shattered front door, sweeping the room with weapon lights.
I didn't wait to see them turn toward the back hallway. I scrambled up onto the counter, grabbed the wooden beam of the ceiling hatch, and hauled myself upward into the dark, stifling heat of the Norfolk commercial roof space just as a burst of automatic gunfire chewed through the drywall directly beneath my boots.
